Paul Carey-Kent

Paul Carey-Kent lives in Southampton, and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the Contemporary Art Society, Bassett Lawn Tennis Club and the Society Of Uxorious Love-poets.'

Darklight

Suburban streets this midnight hour
should be as dead as suburbs are,
should glare by sodium alone.
Once, perhaps, in an orange moon
the sodium inspector might
pass here, looking for lack of light -

but not, I think, for lack of life
to see the light�s lack by; enough
to find the dark he would expect.
Yet no: one house in three is lit,
and not precautionarily -
as fearful as these streets must be

of lesser lights� incursiveness.
A man stares out with citrus face;
the doorstep lovers elongate
their farewell kiss; behind fine net
a late night movie�s fretful blaze,
its temper checked by doubled glaze,

illumines rooms which should be dark.
The loungers lounge. One reads a book
by naked bulb. Uncurtained light
exposes him as bulbous fat
though not, thank goodness, naked too.
I shouldn�t look. Of course, I do

but in a scientific light;
and do not search for silhouettes
at upstairs windows (there are none).
I am the sole pedestrian,
yet on the cars drone, longnightlong,
shuttling the dark�s apparent throng.

Where at this hour can they go?
I sound parental. What of you,
they might well ask, who walk so late?
You ought to be - light out, tucked tight -
asleep in suburb�s guarantee
of goalless calm conformity.

Most times I am, and so presume
that others lead a life as lame.
But stranger than imaginings
the suburb�s secret happenings
teem uncontrolled in unplanned night,
lit up by more than orange light.


Blowhole

Who put the ear into heartbeat?
Who put the moth into mother?
Who put the fat onto father, the one into lone?
Who put the illogical ant into giant,
the ate into water, the prisoner of war into power?
And who drowned a bee in my beer?

Who sneaked the secret into secretary?
The same as put the win into chauvinist swine?
And who put the mini on that feminist administrator
who might have put the leg into elegant?
Who put the scent in pubescent, come to that,
and the end into girlfriend?

Who put the cog into cogent?
Who put the owl into knowledge?
Who slipped the over under cover,
the ill into surveillance, the lie in belief?
Who put cement on that recent announcement
of who put the me in commitment?

Who put the pole into vault, no, sorry,
who put the ol� into pole, no, sorry,
who put the me into shame, no, sorry,
who put the or into sorry? Not me.
Who put the lack into black? Whose edict
was the savage burst of red in unpredictable?

Who put the pain into yellow, the hit into white,
the deal in ideal, the hero into heroin?
Who put the pin into pining?
Who put the ton into stone?
Who put the wreath into breath
if we leave aside the silence?


HER PHOTOGRAPHS

Summer 1952

This woman in tiny black and white
and all the requisite camera glee,
can only count in full because she might

be carrying my Stephanie-to-be.
Steph-who-is assures me she is swollen -
albeit her dress makes it hard to see -

but then says it must be her brother within.
So I must be as young as minus five,
even if I count from my conception.


1958

Nude Steph! Yet at so distant a remove
emerging from the bath at chubby three
I feel no retrospective surge of love.

Maybe that face is beginning to be,
plus she looks flirtatious with the towel.
But I wouldn�t have guessed - though naturally

I�m expert on her naked. A small-scale
smile looks set to spread. I might be being born.
She�ll giggle as her husband starts to bawl.


Christmas �65

It says on the back, so she�s eleven -
with �long black hair for some guy�s white pillow
one day� scrawls Dad. Not meaning me, just seven

and many miles away. You mightn�t know
he meant her, whose hair�s a brown that only
looks black in photos. It�s long enough though,

half swept forward, half swept back. And we see
her brother, the presents, and her left ear -
unbaubled still in contrast to the tree.


1975 x 2

Studious Stephs! These being, it appears,
left over from her Student Union
passport booth session. And given her fear

of throwings away, the card will be hidden
somewhere still. And double-Steph, when at tame
seventeen I couldn�t have coped with one.

The earrings (here I speculate) waste gleam
behind great slabs of hair - or so mock I,
who cultivated kiss-curls at the time...


August 1976

More like it, this! She models a front-tie
bikini, necklaces and - pointed at
with both hands by the ginger-bearded �some guy�

of the time - a rather incongruous hat.
Dave, she says, the long hot summer. He�s skinny,
I note objectively (she�s slim). Not that,

if you showed me then, comparatively,
I wasn�t thinner. But I�m cool on Dave:
I think of him as training her for me


Kilburn �84

Hello, Steph speaking... She always will have
been good on phones (here an eighties dial-up
in white) despite the threat from ten, elev-

no twelve pot plants which creep, climb, hang and loop
around behind her. A cut-away style
reveals one ear, two earrings, and the shape

of an elegant jaw in action. Tall
even then, that cheeseplant. My recollection�s
its later collapse, the awkward disposal.


1985: A Friend�s Wedding

Radiant indeed, Bill�s disproportion
notwithstanding one foot over the top
of her. Yet they were a combination

for almost seven years. I�d just run up
the same in weeks when I met him. Making light
of formalities, I asked for any tips.

She was no trouble, he said, though you might
beware of DIY. But I suspect
his height: a six and a half inch gap is right.


July �87: �The Kent Princesses�

With her is Gelly: a royal prospect
in father�s back-of-photograph poetic,
written as if princesses were perfect.

Gelly will shortly have twins. The magic
of her marriage will then fade. I have two
children too, so far, and soon repeat the trick.

But Princess Steph, unless I misconstrue
the way she beams across the years to me
says I won�t marry, not till I meet you.


Elm Road 1990

Stephie in a jaunty cap, carefully
applying paint. We see her from behind.
Did Bill take this one surreptitiously,

doing-it-himself to show how he would find
she paid him no attention in the quest
for a perfect finish? Perhaps he declined

to do more than take photos? If that�s the best
you can manage.... Whereas we�ve done a room
without falling out. Bill would be impressed.


1992 Perhaps?

Captured mid-scoff! With strawberries and cream
by the looks of it, and evident delight.
Her hair is up. I know we�ve reached the time

of three rings, but her ears are as bare as night
alone makes them. So this must be breakfast
as strawberry dream! It hardly seems right

when I was scraping unphotographed toast
far from the fruit of her kisses. Pour out
the cream please. I want to move on a year, fast.


Her Front Room 1993

Yours truly at last. And what I�m about
is what I had hoped. I well remember
Jim taking this picture. After a drought

of some seconds� orthodox portraitist fare
we kissed and blissed till we made him pretend
to be sick. You�d think her brother would be more

romantic, but it�s not a family trend.
Still this, with me holding her friskily
pony-tailed, might be a good place to end


27 August 1994

if not for tradition, which we now see
in the usual jostle of hangers-on:
two turning aside to deal with their baby,

one with her eyes closed, one hidden apart from
his hair, and several looking other
than they�d have chosen. But the bride�s in form,

and the twins in extravagant flower -
and I have the look of a world that�s gone right
for decades to come in the last quarter-hour.

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